Staff and board members for Nickle Lake Regional Park were picking up the pieces on Monday and Tuesday following a destructive binge of vandalism over the holiday weekend.
A number of playground equipment pieces were damaged, tipped over or wrecked in the spree which took place late Sunday night, said park manager Judy Johnson.
"They pulled children's playground equipment out of the ground, and rolled the merry-go-round into the water. There were other things, like the bathrooms were vandalized, but basically it was the little kids who were upset," she said Tuesday morning.
A set of swings and a slide, both of which had their legs in cement pads in the ground, were both pulled over out of the ground. By the ball diamonds, "pretty well everything there was trashed," said Johnson.
The Nickle Lake board is very concerned about the level of damage done in the park, and will be meeting with the Weyburn RCMP in the next couple weeks to determine what sort of measures they can and cannot do in response, said Larry Olfert, president of the regional park board.
"We have to somehow put an end to this. There was a lot of stuff stolen and a lot of stuff damaged," said Olfert, adding some of the playground equipment damaged in this incident will not be repairable, and will have to be replaced.
"We're not sure what we're going to do about replacing the equipment. Unfortunately, a lot of kids were out there having fun and not getting into trouble, so we can't really say it was just one group of kids. We're looking at some other options, like maybe making it a family campground so you can't stay overnight unless you're in a family unit," said Olfert. Another option which may be considered is banning the consumption of alcohol, as some provincial parks do on holiday weekends.
"There were a lot of visitors from other areas, not just Weyburn. I'm afraid we might not be seeing them again after what happened," he added.
The park board is asking if any member of the public has any suggestions about what could be done in terms of regulations, they can contact park managers Ken and Judy Johnson, or any of the park board members.
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